Annual Montana Trip

Since I grew up in Montana and still have family there, we try to visit every Summer. Son and I flew out this time for a week and enjoyed ourselves! We stayed with my dad, visited family, did a few fun things, and relaxed.

I'll just share a few photo highlights with you:

This is how you know you're in Montana - one of the displays in the airport. :)

Saw the fireworks show after an annual Summer concert on the college lawn!

Visited my sister!

Scored some awesome golf shoes in my size for $5 at a thrift store.

New golf shoes did not improve my score when we golfed 9 holes together. Dad won of course - how can you go wrong when you start out with 7 pars in a row? Now if they would make it a Par 7 course instead of Par 3, I would be considered an awesome golfer. ;)

Went to the museum that I hadn't been to since childhood and was glad to see a couple things that I remembered, including this white buffalo named "Big Medicine."

I never miss a chance to go to The Parrot! I did share this sundae with my dad - all the ice cream is homemade and so are the toppings. SO delicious!!

My Aunt & Uncle gave us some hand-picked raspberries, so dad and I made raspberry freezer jam. I did get to taste it before I left - delish!!

We did a few other things that I didn't get pics of and I visited a few relatives on both sides of the family. And we ate out...a LOT. Mostly we enjoyed not getting up too early, hanging out with dad, and playing card games in the evening. Other than flight delays there and back, the trip was a good one!

Do you take a family trip in the Summer? Have you been to Montana?

Have a blessed day friends!

Monday Musings {7/23}

Monday night is still Monday! I'm joining my friend Charlotte and doing Monday Musings! Feel free to post your own musings ~ tell me in the comments so I can come visit! :)

What I'm thinking: How nice it is to be out of the car after 2 long days on the road! I'm on the couch and relaxing in comfy clothes right now!

What I'm reading: During the road trip, I've been reading One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp and The Money Saving Mom's Budget by Crystal Paine. I'm also slowly working my way through Psalms in my Bible reading.

What I'm listening to: Hubs watching TV and typing on his laptop and a fan blowing.

What we're learning: That using Instagram and Facebook check-ins make a road trip more fun! :)

What I'm watching: News about the movie theater massacre. So sad. My prayers are with the victims' families as well as with the shooter's family.

What's cooking: Had salmon from Costco tonight. Will be eating out a lot while on vacation this week. Looking forward to dinner out for hubs' birthday tomorrow!

What I'm buying: Probably some clothing or other items since I'm visiting a state with no sales tax! And definitely some candy from my favorite candy store!

What I'm thankful for: Very thankful for safe travels all the way from California to Montana!

What I'm creating: I completed the craft I mentioned last week. That is amazing for me!

What I'm planning: Celebrating hubs' birthday tomorrow! Happy Birthday honey - I love you!!

What we did this last weekend: Drove and drove and drove. :)

What I'm looking forward to: Hubs' birthday, hanging out with Dad, sight-seeing, and more!

A picture to share: 

Sunset in Nevada on our first day of driving - amazing that I could capture that with my phone through the car window while the car was zipping along on the highway!

How was your past week? What do you have going on this week?


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Have a blessed day friends!

Housecleaning Week Update & Wordless Wednesday: Vacation Smiles

For all the Housecleaning Week details, stop by Monday's post! This cleaning stuff is hard labor - how do people do it? LOL! I'll give you my update and your assignments...

MY progress on yesterday's project: Sigh. The hard part of these projects is that I'm not doing them until all my regular stuff for the day is done. So....the rest of my house is nice and tidy, but I didn't get much done in the master bedroom other than folding and putting away clean clothes that had piled up a bit.

MY project for today: Organizing the cabinet that has all my cookbooks, etc.

YOUR assignment #1: Find 10 clothing items to donate or sell and put them in a bag or box.
YOUR assignment #2: Clean off/organize all the things that are displayed on your refrigerator.

See? You get quick and easy assignments! When you finish, could ya come help me?? LOL! I did do your assignments from yesterday, so that is something extra accomplished.

If you're done cleaning now, then take a look at some pics!

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Like any mom, I just love seeing my kid smile! So I thought I would share some of his smiles from our recent Montana trip.

I sure do LOVE that kid! :)

For more fun pics, stop by Wordless Wednesday at 5 Minutes For Mom!

I'm also linking this up at Your Life, Your Blog at Real Life! Go and link up any post from the previous week!

Strange Stops In Nevada

There are strange places in every state. We happened upon a few as we went through Nevada during our trip!

First, I wanted to show you this lovely oasis in the middle of Nevada...

Yes, that is a rest stop. Isn't it a picturesque spot to enjoy a lunch? LOL! And, by the way - those restrooms have pit toilets and no water. But, I was in desperate need of a rest area and was ever so thankful that this one was there!!

Here's a passing glance of a small town in Nevada. Most of the towns have the first letter of their name on a hill somewhere. It's Battle Mountain and though it has legal fireworks of all kinds in its favor, I still would have trouble living in a town that has "BM" on the hill! :)

One more really strange stop is the Thunder Mountain Monument. It's quite bizarre. On the website, it looks fascinating and has an interesting eccentric story to go with it. Here it is in real life:

This is the back side. The whole thing is made from recycled cars and junk.

Closeup of the back side.

Some sort of totem pole being worked on.

Twice we have driven up to take a look and twice we have been so creeped out by the whole place that we have driven away rather quickly! Here are some reasons why I didn't feel welcome:

Enter at your own risk?????? No thanks!

Nice evil spirit statue to greet you as you drive up!

License plates of former victims, I mean tourists???

Whew - we made it out safely - LOL!! You should check out the website though - it is interesting to see pics of the inside and the story is unusual. If you've been there or go there, you'll have to let me know!

Just a few strange spots in Nevada as we drove on through! Do you have some strange spots in your area or that you've seen on trips?

Tour The Caverns With Me

One of our favorite things to do in Montana is to visit Lewis & Clark Caverns! I saw them many times growing up and now my son has even seen them twice. It's very hard to get good pics as it's so dark in the caverns, so much space, and the cave absorbs the flash. But, there are a few pics to at least give you an idea. So join me for a little tour!

Trail to the cavern entrance. Arrow points to trail with people hiking on it and circle is around the approximate cave entrance. It's about a 3/4 mile hike, climbing 300 feet in elevation.

There's my son starting off the hike. Of course, he ran up part of the way! I huffed & puffed in the high altitude and slowly made my way up.

My son at the entrance.

My son and his Grandpa!

Me & hubby!

Let's head through the tunnel!

Looking through broken stalactites as we head down.

Stairs chiseled into the cave.

Me & my son climbing through (with lame facial expressions!) - you have to bend over in half in so many places!

Down some more. Upper right of the pic has some formations in the dark.

Watch your head! My Dad bumped his a few times - ouch!

Some pretty flowstone.

Me and my bright green purse managed to navigate just fine!

Down even more!!

Flash wouldn't show it, but there's a pool waaaaaayyyyyy down at the bottom of the dark hole.

Spectacular, isn't it?! OK, I couldn't resist - this is just black. But when you get into the heart of the cave, they show you what it was like for the workers if their candles went out. They turn out all lights and you CANNOT see your hand in front of your face even if it touches your nose. I think they call it natural total darkness?

Some colored flowstone.

The color comes from minerals in the water. This formation is called the Brown Waterfall.

Now we are climbing up. Looks like some cave popcorn.

Can't remember how these form, but don't they look interesting?

Though we are inside a cave, we are at a mile high in elevation.

Up stairs into the final room. Try to see some of those formations in the dark - fantastic!

Part of the ceiling.

One of the columns.

Coming out of the fabulous final room.

The tunnel out.

We were so surprised to walk out into hail!! Good thing it wasn't any bigger or we could have been hurt! My dad's head did get hit and was stinging, but the rest of us just felt a few little hits. My son was so excited and was collecting the hail in his hand!

What is this doing here?? Well, after all that hiking and climbing, we had to go somewhere good for lunch! We headed to Wheat Montana - yum! We saved this caramel roll for breakfast the next day. That baby is easily 6 inches square or more, so we cut it into 6 pieces and it fed 3 of us quite easily!

Hope you enjoyed your tour today! Stop back here tomorrow for Chocolate Friday! Get your chocolate posts ready to link up!